


That Which We Are

by mikkey_bones



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Issues, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-23
Updated: 2012-11-23
Packaged: 2017-11-19 07:33:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/570771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkey_bones/pseuds/mikkey_bones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Q seems to explain gender theory, the Kinsey scale, and things like that on a daily basis.  The dictionary by which he defines his identity isn't an open book.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Which We Are

**Author's Note:**

  * For [miss_violet_hunter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_violet_hunter/gifts).



> Thanks to [Russell](http://carpe-horas.tumblr.com) & [Emmett](http://epaulement.tumblr.com/) for taking the time to beta this for me! And thanks to [Elizabeth](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ekaybee/) for helping me come up with the plot in the first place.
> 
> Trigger warnings for depression, gender dysphoria, and a physical exam.

“So what are these?” Moneypenny asks, putting the stack on Q's desk. He takes one of the packets, and leafs through it. The forms came out mostly like he wanted – they're information sheets, to put at the front of the dossiers of potential employees. “M muttered something about political correctness.  He didn't seem very pleased.”

Q shrugs and flips to the back, shows her the section for personal information. He taps the box for gender, where it says “man,” “woman,” and “other,” with a line after, to allow for self-assignation.

“What's wrong with the good old male and female boxes?” Moneypenny asks.  Q is reminded again (this happens at least once a day) that the general public, even the general public of MI6, is not nearly as well-versed in sociological gender theory as he might wish they were.

“Biological sex and chosen gender are not the same thing,” Q says, looking at the gender box (how typical, that it's all contained in a single box, as though it's as easy as four right angles) instead of at Moneypenny. “Biologically speaking, there's male and female and even intersex. Those have to do with anatomy. They're dichotomous. But gender falls on a continuum – he, she, both, neither... and it doesn't necessarily have to do with the sex to which one is assigned at birth.”

Moneypenny gives him a strange look.

“It's not just politically correct,” Q adds, because something (everything) about that statement rubs him the wrong way. “It's more _factual_ this way.” There's a pause. Moneypenny is staring. “We're trying to be more inclusive,” he says finally, a little exasperated. His voice is already high and tense, like it gets when he's emotional. This is yet another reason why he's not a field agent.

“Who?” Moneypenny asks finally.  “MI6?”  The skepticism in her voice is damning.

Q restacks the applications and shoves them into his desk drawer, shutting it emphatically. “No,” he says.  As if they would ever.  “Q Branch.”

Moneypenny watches as Q goes back to his computer, brings up a window, begins typing randomly.  (He keeps a twitter account written in binary code; it amuses him to update often; his tweets are quite short, due to the character limits.)  Eventually, she says, “This all seems to matter a great deal to you.”

“The facts matter,” Q replies.  He hasn't been having the greatest day; he's already testy and honestly why is _he_ the one who has to explain this to everyone?  It's as if they're all twelve and haven't heard of Google yet.

“So which box would you check?” Eve Moneypenny asks, leaning her hip against the desk and watching Q with her agent stare, the one that says she knows everything he's trying to hide.

Luckily, Q is used to agents.  “None of them,” he says, effectively shutting down the conversation.  “I'm already employed.”

\---

One of the notes scribbled in Q's psych evaluation form is _recurring nightmares_.  His dream goes like this:

He's standing in public – whether it's entering a lecture hall at uni or standing at the front of a meeting, presenting for MI6, when he realizes he's wearing a dress.  Or skirts.  Women's clothing.  He can feel how it's tight around his waist, how it clings to him as it moves, giving up all of his secrets.

In these dreams, he's always talking, and he keeps speaking as he looks down.  He has breasts, and upon noticing this significant change in his anatomy, he stops talking.  But everyone is still staring at him.

He'll turn around, just looking, and always happen to catch sight of himself in some reflective surface – a window, a mirror, a computer screen.  His hair will be long.  He'll have earrings.  He'll be wearing _lipstick_.

Then he breaks.  He drops whatever he's holding (he's always holding something).  It falls on the floor with a clatter.  Everyone stares.  He makes a break for it.  Everyone stares.

When he runs, he realizes he's wearing high heels, which clack on the ground and make him wobble as he moves.  He can't run fast, and everyone is following him.  They probably don't mean him any harm.  Maybe they want to ask questions; maybe they want to help.  But they get closer and closer and Q gets more and more terrified.

Eventually, inevitably, one of his feet will slip out from under him and he'll fall, hard, on the ground.  When he puts his hands out to catch himself, he'll see that his nails are painted – sometimes blue, sometimes red.  They're always long and manicured.

Then the crowd catches up with him, they swarm over him, and Q wakes up.  He usually comes awake with a jolt, clutching at his chest, making sure that there's _nothing there_.  When the dream has been particularly real, he'll slide his hands up under his pajama shirt, touching his scars with a shaking finger.  His chest will be heaving, and it will take him a while to calm down again.

Often, afterwards, he can't sleep.  He'll lie awake, staring at the ceiling for an hour or  two, before giving up completely and getting up to prepare for the day.  At least, he thinks, it means he'll have free time for his own projects before he takes his Celexa and hops onto the Tube.

Q's flat – small, but nice, and well-secured – doesn't have any mirrors, especially not in the bathroom.  And he stares straight ahead when he showers, so he can imagine everything is the way that it should be.

\---

Before being hired, each potential employee of MI6 must undergo a physical.  It's not like Q had much of a choice in the matter – he was picked up, literally, out of the clutches of the law.  Arms smuggling, weapons design, and computer hacking can only go unnoticed for so long, especially as Q had, essentially, created an entire underground network for online illicit activity.

When he's interviewed for a position in Q branch, he's wearing handcuffs.  Later, he gets the feeling that this is how most personnel in MI6 enter the field of espionage – from the military or the prisons.

They remove his handcuffs for the psych evaluation.  Q (but back then, he wasn't Q) keeps a lot to himself, because his background is not something he enjoys talking about.  For all they know, he was born and raised Sebastian Eliot in a small house in London, went to an average prep school, received average grades...

He imagines the poor sods who are digging for his real identity. With how deep (and permanently) he's hidden it, imagines they will be digging for quite a while longer.

His required physical is torture, even though nothing really happens.  The stone-faced doctor gives no reaction when Sebastian strips down in front of him, only touches him with impersonally gloved hands.  The powdery rubber feels like a trail of slime, and Sebastian is shaking when it's over.  He can't make himself stop even as the he dresses himself, even as the guards escort him down a cement-lined hallway to another small room.

There's an old woman sitting at the table.  She's nothing special, as far as old women go – at least until Q notices the steel in her eyes, the strong lines of her jaw.  It's–

“Good evening.  You may call me M,” she says, in a not-unfriendly fashion.  Her hands are folded together on top of the table; she's the picture of composure.

“Good evening,” Sebastian answers, formal in kind.  His guards leave him in the room.  At least his hands aren't cuffed this time.

M looks at him.  “Well, sit, you,” she says.  “Shall we still call you Mr. Eliot?”

Sebastian thins his lips.  “That is the name I prefer, yes,” he says.  He takes a seat slowly and then hides his hands by clasping them tightly together in his lap, to hide their shaking.

“And as for your...”  M gestures up and down, at Sebastian's body.

Not this again, Sebastian thinks.  Why is it this, every time?  Why does it always come down to his _body_ , not anything important?  “I hacked into your private, secure servers multiple times.  I crashed your entire computer system with a single, remotely introduced virus.  The only reason you caught me was because one of my own men betrayed me.”  He glares.

It gives M pause, to see Sebastian's own steel; she leans back in her chair and her look is infused with a newfound... respect, probably, Sebastian thinks.  He's rather insulted that she didn't look at him like that before.

“You have been quite the lawbreaker,” she says.

“I'll take a plea deal,” Sebastian says, not because he's desperate, but because he likes getting to the point as quickly as possible.  Skip all the small talk, all the insinuations; he has never been good at those.  “Any sort of plea deal, as long as you keep me out of prison.”

M frowns at him.  She probably didn't expect him to break this easily, but Sebastian's not breaking – he's just taking the most logical, smartest path of action.  The physical was torture enough.  “We believe you were working as part of an organization...”

“You can have the lot,” Sebastian says.  “Just keep me out of prison.”

There's a pause; Sebastian presses his advantage.  “Your servers are still laughably underprotected,” he says.  “It's like your lot are still living back in the Cold War.”

It's probably not the first time that someone has earned a job at MI6 by threatening it, but Sebastian is proud nonetheless.  He wears a suit on his first day of work in the Quartermaster division, mostly because he wants people to take him _seriously_ (and if the blazer is large enough he feels comfortable even when he sticks his chest out), but it soon turns back into his usual cardigan and plaid pants, because in Q-Division, you get respect based on your skills, not on your tailoring.

He prefers it that way.

\---

One month after the death of 007, James Bond, Q, formerly Sebastian, is elevated to Quartermaster.  The security breach in MI6 has shaken a lot of people up, thrown Q-Division into a frenzy of overwork, and led to a great deal of departmental shuffling.

The former Q, though, is shuffled off for a much more old-fashioned reason; he dies of a heart attack in his shower at home.  It's nothing suspicious, and when Q is called into M's office, he already knows what's coming.

If Q was forced to pick a pronoun with which to describe himself, perhaps he would use a letter.  “She” is out of the question, but sometimes “he” feels a little too tight around the edges; Q has always hated restrictions.  “They,” he feels, is grammatically imprecise.

But a letter...

Q stands for quizzical, quarrelsome, quick, querulous, questioning, quandary.  It's a quality and quantity of mystery; it's a simple shape that signifies, by itself, virtually nothing.

When M bestows the title on him, it settles around his shoulders like a blanket, comfortable and warm.  “Q,” he repeats after her.

“If you want, we can still call you Sebastian, or Mr. Eliot,” M says, watching him from her desk.  They get along well, now that Q isn't trying to crash MI6's systems.  She knows most of his secrets; Q knows most of hers – it’s how the job works.

“No, thank you,” Q says.  “The letter is just fine.”

M smiles at him.  M is for mystery, mastery, Machiavellian, mortal, man... Perhaps she feels the same way as he does.

“Very well, Q,” she says, and Q feels as though he could sing.  All of his office things fit in a box (he doesn't keep much on his desk, just a mug and a few books he never reads, a few USB drives and a manual of MI6 protocol) and it's the work of minutes to move to his new desk.

When he gets there, someone is waiting for him.  She's dark-skinned and curly-haired and Q recognizes her immediately.

“So you're the new Quartermaster,” Eve Moneypenny says, offering him a smile.  She holds out her hand for him; Q puts the box on his desk and then shakes her hand.  “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” Q says, looking at her warily.  She's the one who killed 007, albeit by accident.  It's easy to imagine her in the field – she has shadows under her eyes and a grim twist to her mouth that doesn't go away when she smiles.

“Mallory sent me over to make sure you were adjusting,” she said, demeanor shifting back to professionalism.  “You're quite a bit younger than I expected.”

Q gives her a look.  “I'm probably quite a bit smarter than you expect, too, so don't test me,” he says, because frankly he's tired of these snide comments about his youth; if anything, he should be accorded an even greater respect because of it.

Moneypenny's smile returns as a shadow of its former self.  “Fair enough,” she says.  “I'm probably a better shot than you expect, but don't let me get near you with a gun.”  There's a frown line between her sculpted eyebrows.  She looks pained.

He might not be good with emotions, but Q can tell that Moneypenny has been torturing herself like this for a month, and probably isn't going to stop anytime soon.  With some hesitation, he reaches out, pats her arm near her elbow.  “We're working on that here.  Better scopes.  Tracking bullets.”

She pulls away from him.  “I don't need your pity,” she snaps.  Q retracts his hand.  It's so frustratingly easy to say the wrong things, with human beings.

But she comes back to talk to him the next day, and the day after that, so he supposes he didn't mess up too badly.

\---

The thing about machines is, they don't have a gender, not really.  Referring to a computer as “he” or “she” does not change its operating system, does not change anything fundamental about its inner workings, its construction.  The label is temporary, transient; it's an arbitrary designation that ultimately changes nothing.

That's one thing that Q likes about machines.

He supposes, in an ideal world, he would like to be like a computer.  All of his hardware could be changed, or kept, as needed; his software could be updated as new technology came available.  He wouldn't be stuck in this halfway shape like a computer program with a few faulty lines of code, like a state-of-the-art operating system installed on a 1982 IBM computer.

In an ideal world, really, there would be no bodies, just minds and data, so Q wouldn't have to worry about appearances or sex or making sure his hair looked at least half-decent.

He's already developed a slight hunch in his shoulders.  Even though he wears loose cardigans and baggy shirts, he's still afraid of standing with his shoulders back and his chest out, just in case someone notices... something.  Anything.

His sleeves are long enough, and his pants are loose enough, that he's fairly certain no one can tell that anything is different.  Just in case, though, when he goes to meet 007 for the first time, he wears a large and puffy overcoat over his suit.  Agent 007 is legendary throughout MI6 and beyond, and he doesn't want to take any chances.

They talk.  007 treats him like any new, untested recruit.  Q thinks he acquits himself well.  007 certainly seems pleased, or at least... amused.  He carries that around like a small triumph all day.

Of course, the next day, Q spills his tea on an almost-new (thankfully waterproof) keyboard and then, while he's in the kitchen making a new cup for himself, he overhears two of his colleagues discussing some poor, sad cross-dressing schoolboy who has been all over the news lately, and his mood is rather ruined.

A few weeks later, 007 activates his radio.  MI6 is suddenly flooded with personnel, along with a prisoner, the only one Q has seen in the underground complex.  His digs remind Q unpleasantly of his first experience with the agency, though Q's treatment was much less special.

Then Silva escapes, and Q gets his first taste of real espionage.  It's an anxiety-inducing, heart-in-your-mouth sort of thing, to speak at one end of a connection and guide a real live agent through a crisis.  It's like a video game, only there are no do-overs, and for once, as he stares fixedly at his computer screens, trying not to make it obvious his hands are shaking as he types.

He doesn't think about his body, though, or whether or not it can serve him here.  Instead, he imagines himself as 007 must; he's a voice in the agent's ear.  Incorporeal, but real nonetheless.  It's oddly liberating.  When 007 is successful, at the end of that long week, he goes around with a smile on his face that can't seem to disappear.

Then he hears two of his colleagues discussing another worker, who's currently on sick leave.  “She dresses like a tranny,” they say, and just like that, once again, his good mood is gone.

\---

Q is approached by a coworker a few days after the Quartermaster Division switches to his new forms.  The man has graying hair and looks average, even in a suit; he's a lower-level software analyst.  Q has never spoken to him before.

“Excuse me,” the man says.  Q looks up guiltily from the plate of biscuits he is preparing to liberate from the kitchen.

“Yes?”

“I got the memo about the new employee information forms,” the man says.  Q watches the set of his mouth, puts a hand on his pocket, prepares for violence, disapproval.  “And I just wanted to say thank you.”  Q is surprised.  “My s– my daughter is...”  He waves a hand.  “She would appreciate this, I think.”  He wets his lips, clearly anxious.  “I think... a lot of people would appreciate this.  Thank you.”

Q deals with 00 agents, mostly, and Tanner and M and Eve Moneypenny.  He's not used to gratitude.  “You're... welcome,” he says, as the man gives an awkward sort of head bob and flees.

Forgetting about his biscuits for a moment, Q stares after him.  His heart is still racing from everything that could have happened in that confrontation, but didn't.  “It's more factual this way,” he says finally, because he's not doing this to make anyone happy.  He's doing it because it's correct.

A few minutes later, he returns to his workstation to see Moneypenny sitting on his desk.

“I have a chair, you know,” Q says and sighs loudly, pretending he isn't at least a little bit glad of the distraction, as Moneypenny steals one of his biscuits.  She takes the iced gingerbread, which is his favorite.

“But you sit in it,” Moneypenny replies.  She smiles at him.  “I didn't want to steal your seat.”

Q sits in his chair.  For once.  “Only my productivity,” he quips in reply.

Moneypenny's smile grows.  She has dimples that only show up when she's really happy, Q knows.  He imagines duplicating her smile in a sculpture or in song.  “I was thinking...”

“How rare,” Q inserts drily, because he is an ass.  It earns him a smack on the shoulder.

“Shut up.  I was thinking about your forms last night, when I was home, and I did some research.” Moneypenny looks at him, tilting her head and making her curls bounce.  “There are studies about this sort of thing!” she exclaims.  “And I had no idea!”

Q wants to say something about how wonders never cease, but refrains.  He supposes he should be thankful that Moneypenny bothered to do any research at all.  And he is, a little, which points to an alarming sort of Stockholm syndrome – pathetic gratitude when people act like decent human beings.  What next?

Moneypenny, Q knows, doesn't miss the bitter twist of his mouth.  She just chooses to ignore it – for now.  “I learned a lot,” she says, “like about sexuality, which was so interesting.  Did you know there's such a thing as ‘pansexuality?’“

“Oh my God,” Q deadpans.  “It's like you've never even heard of the Kinsey scale.”

\---

Q almost declines the invitation to the office holiday party, the same as every year, but this time Moneypenny is here and prevails upon him to show up.  And he supposes it wouldn't hurt.  Administrative upheaval makes for low morale, and Q has read studies that show the importance of strong leadership in times of change.

So he dons a red cardigan instead of a brown one, runs his fingers through his hair twice instead of once, and stays late at the office to help Moneypenny decorate with fairy lights and crepe paper.

“I never understood the point of the holidays, really,” he says.  “It's not as if we get vacation time.”

“You don't,” Moneypenny says.  She's holding the wobbly chair for Q while he tapes crepe paper to the ceiling.  It's a vertiginous affair and Q is glad to step down.  “But you never request any vacation time.  If you clocked in all your overtime, you'd probably bankrupt MI6.”

Q rolls his eyes.  “It's not as if I'm always working,” he says, following Moneypenny across the room as she sets up the chair in another corner.  He feels like a Christmas fairy, trailing crumpled crepe paper.  “If I could, I'd clock in overtime for this party.”

Moneypenny wrinkles her nose.  “I'm going to let you fall, then,” she says, though her hands are firm on the back of the chair as Q steps up.

“Accident and Emergency is more interesting than holiday parties,” Q retorts, mostly just to be contrary.  He's seen his fair share, though, and hates the places in general; they bring up nasty memories.

Eve Moneypenny, too, doesn't seem to feel like talking about A&E.  Q supposes, all things considered, that she's had a bit more experience in that area than he has.  “Tanner said he might show up,” she says.  “And if he does, he'll bring Bond.”

“007?” Q asks, sticking the red crepe paper sloppily on top of the green crepe paper.  He uses five pieces of tape to attach the paper to the wall.  Better safe than sorry.  “I thought this was an office party.”

“He's an agent,” Moneypenny replies equivocally.  Her crush on 007 is painfully obvious – Q supposes it's more a combination of attraction, guilt, and admiration.  “He comes here occasionally.”  Mostly to practice flirting with you, Q thinks, but keeps his mouth shut.  “He's on leave now, and he's bored.”

“I'm sure an office party is just what he needs, then,” Q deadpans, letting the statement speak for itself.

Moneypenny gives him a look.  “At least it's safe,” she snaps.

Q, who has a fairly good idea of exactly what kind of danger the armory and the design rooms are hiding, shrugs.  “I suppose you could see it that way,” he replies.

\---

It’s too warm.  Q hates crowds.  And someone (when Q finds out their identity, he will make their life a living hell for at least a week) has brought in a radio, to play overloud renditions of Christmas pop songs with too many sleigh bells.  Q is listening to the third rendition of “Jingle Bell Rock,” leaning against the wall and holding a half-eaten biscuit, watching the guests.  It's easy to tell which guests were former agents – they drink harder, talk louder, flirt more.  He recognizes his coworkers at Q branch, the furthest thing from field agents, mostly huddling up against the walls, like he is, talking softly in small groups.

And 007 is a force of nature at the center of the party.  Everyone's attention is on him, no matter how far away they are, no matter how involved in their separate conversations they seem.  Q is analyzing the guest field, and statistical distribution of the partygoers, when Moneypenny comes up to him, tipsy already, and throws an arm around his shoulders.

“What are you doing all by yourself?” she asks, leaning her head affectionately on his shoulder.

Q freezes, going immediately into his defensive mode.  “Eating a biscuit,” he says, pushing Moneypenny away from him and taking several steps away from her.  “What are you doing, coming here all alone with me?”

At least, Q thinks, Moneypenny can still take a hint, even when she's been drinking.  She follows him, but doesn't touch him again.  “You're my friend,” she says.  “I thought I'd keep you company.”

Q looks at her and then glances at 007 once more.  He's like a stone that gets dropped into the middle of a pond; his presence makes ripples that unsettle everyone.  “It's because 007 is ignoring you, isn't it?”

“He's not ignoring me,” Moneypenny says, but she sighs heavily and leans against the wall.  “How do you do it, Q?” she asks after a moment.  “Stay so aloof from everything.  It's like nothing bothers you.”

Most things bother him.  “Self-defense,” Q offers.  He glances at Moneypenny's cup, which is nearly empty.  “Do you want more punch?”

“Do you like anyone?” Moneypenny asks, moving her cup out of Q's reach.  He'll take that as a no, then.  “Have you ever liked anyone?”

Q thinks back.  “The way you like 007?  Probably not.  Your feelings seem very unique.”  He knows what Moneypenny's asking, but he doesn't want to give her the answer.

Moneypenny hits him in the arm.  She's tipsy, so it actually hurts, and Q winces.  “You're such an ass,” she says.  Then she leans against the wall, her shoulders hunched, imitating Q's earlier position.  She usually isn't so defensive.

It dawns on Q rather embarrassingly late that Moneypenny is legitimately hurt.  Q sighs.  “I don't like anyone,” he says.  “Not like that.  It's less messy that way.”

“But you have to,” Moneypenny says.  “You can't just... not.”

Q shrugs.  “Remember the Kinsey scale?”  Moneypenny nods.  “Maybe you're a one or a two.  I'm an X.”

“That's not on the scale,” Moneypenny argues.

Q shrugs again.  “Exactly,” he says.  “Do you want to go somewhere else?  I've never been, but I heard there's a nice coffee shop just a few blocks away.”

Moneypenny stares.

“It's open all night,” he says.  “I think it might be nice.”

\---

Eve Moneypenny is very curious.  It's in her nature, Q supposes.  She was trained to ask questions.  But he quickly gets tired of her asking, “What is it like, not to like anyone?” or “Do you masturbate?” like she has a right to know every detail of his private life.

“Do _you_ masturbate?” Q snaps in return, shutting his laptop decisively and glaring at her.  “I'm not a _zoo_ animal, Moneypenny.”

For a few seconds, Q is terrified that Moneypenny will press on anyway, because she has that bulldog tenacity that's hammered into every field agent from the beginning of their training.  But instead, she takes a step back and looks chagrined.

“You're right,” Eve Moneypenny says, biting her lip.  “I'm sorry.  I'm out of line.”

It takes Q a moment to figure out how to react; he is (as always) so used to being on the defensive that such an apology is alien to him.  “It's...”  _It's fine_ , he almost says, but it's really not.  Instead, he says, “Yes, you were.”

They look at each other for a few tense moments, over Q's closed laptop, until Moneypenny sighs.  “I've been really shitty about this, haven't I?”

Q nods.  “It's not like I'm not used to it,” he adds.  Then, just in case Moneypenny gets any ideas, “It was still shitty, though.”

Moneypenny nods.  “You're right,” she says.  If only all apologies were this easy, Q thinks, and this quickly obtained.

They're still staring at each other.  Q wishes he was better with these sorts of situations – better at defending himself in the first place, and, barring that, better at talking to people about these sorts of things in the first place.

“Do you want to go somewhere else?” Moneypenny asks after a bit.  “There's a coffee shop nearby.  I went once, and it's pretty good.”  She gives him a crooked smile.  “Let me pay.  I promise I won't ask you stupid questions about the Kinsey scale, or gender, or anything like that.”

“And you won't talk about 007,” Q says.  “I don't know what we're going to talk about.  We'll have to start from scratch.”

Moneypenny winces, but laughs anyway.  “Is that a yes, then?”

They're not technically on duty – Q has stayed approximately an hour over his shift, and he doesn't know if Moneypenny even _has_ shifts – so he doesn't hesitate when he answers, “Yes, it is.”  He grabs his office keys from his desk drawer and picks up the overlarge coat draped on his chair; the sun has already set and it's cold.

“Great,” Moneypenny says.  She almost takes Q's arm, but then changes the gesture to put her hands in her pockets.

Q appreciates that – it's the little things in life.  “Thanks,” he says, and he's not just talking about the coffee.  And then, because they're friends and they _do_ have other things to talk about besides the Kinsey scale and field agent crushes, “I'm thinking about getting a cat.”

**Author's Note:**

> _fin._


End file.
